computer virus????

A day and half ago my computer crashed. I have IT people in family and one just spent a few hours cleaning the mess. It appears quite a few strange commands were inserted in places they should not have been. Sounds like a virus to me.

I'd suggest getting a virus scanner (I prefer Norton) and make sure you set it to scan all your incoming email. Also, here's a link to scan your computer online for free:http://www.antivirus.com/pc-cillin/
The scan takes a while the first time, but it's worth it. (If you do have another virus scanner installed, be sure to disable it before you do the online scan)

Jan 5, '02

as i have said before..............anti virus software is not the only thing you should have on the net. if you use the net, there are other things you should have also. there are programs and/or things that can be done, to prevent or do anything, anybody wants.

me

Jan 5, '02

True, antivirus is just a start, hope it didn't sound like that was the cure-all... I'm probably one of the anal types, I don't open attachments, scan everything, have zone-alarm, you name it, I've done it. And so far (knock on wood), I haven't been hit by a virus in my 6 years on the internet, and I'm proud of that fact..hehe.

(now watch, tomorrow I'll make a post about being hit by some stoopid virus! LOL)

Jan 5, '02

In my previous life, I was a systems manager, and that was before the advent of the internet as we know it now. But that's another story.

What happened to me was I had a mainframe computer with terminals for all my users. I had to buy a PC for a market research program that one of the guys needed. It started acting really flaky after a bit. Well, I went through that thing, replacing part after part, trying to fix what APPEARED to be a hardware problem that I couldn't quite track down.

I asked some of my friends and colleagues about the whole thing, and I even asked the most sophisticated Wizard I knew about the possibility of a virus. I was told that the possibility of having a virus was SO LOW as to be almost impossible, and I should carry on with what I'd been trying.

The upshot of it was: I got a Macafee disc at about 2200 on Thursday, the 12th, and ran it over the machine. Sure enough, Jerusalem Friday the 13th was in there and about to completely remove the data in the drive of that computer.

I had a lot of backups, but of course those were infected as well. I traced the virus back to a database update disc that we'd bought from the vendor of the market research program!!! Go figure!

The good part of all this was that there were all these perfectly good computer parts that I'd taken out one at a time, trying to fix the problem, and I bought them for a song from my job and took them home and bought some other parts and built my first home PC!